Ukraine in 2013 commissioned renewable energy facilities with a total capacity of 539.1 MW, which was 50.6% more than in 2012, Deputy Head of the State Agency on Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving of Ukraine Serhiy Dubovyk said at a press conference in Kyiv on Friday.

As of January 1, 2014, the installed capacity of renewable energy facilities that operate on feed-in tariffs was to 1.216 GW.

The capacity of solar power facilities operating on feed-in tariffs in 2013 grew from 371.6 MW to 746.9 MW, that of wind farms from 275.7 MW to 370.7 MW, small hydropower units from 73.5 MW to 75.3 MW, and those using biomass from 4.2 MW to 17.2 MW. In addition, biogas plants with a capacity of 6.5 MW started operating on feed-in tariffs in 2013.

Several solar power plants with an installed capacity of 100 MW were commissioned late in 2013, which was conducive to a slight increase in power output for the whole of 2013.

Ukraine's Energy and Coal Industry Ministry recently reported that power generation by power plants using renewable sources, apart from large hydroelectric power plants, doubled in 2013 or grew by 608.4 million kilowatt-hours (kWh), to 1.247 billion kWh.

The share of electricity generated from renewable sources (wind, solar and biomass) of total generation grew from 0.32% in 2012 to 0.64% in 2013.